"I find that hard to believe."
"You have my word." He gazed at her until she nodded, then he said, "I did feel that the columnist who pilloried you behaved improperly. I spoke to the editor, and you may have seen that later editions of that issue omitted the paragraph. I hope it caused you no undue distress."
"I got off lightly compared with Enoch Hill. Your paper has been stirring up hatred against him and his followers all summer."
"Not simply expressing an honest English view?"
"If you value peace as much as you say, you ought to leave others in peace."
"Perhaps we needn"t be so economical with our peace as with our grain. I remind you, though, that the newspaper isn"t my voice."
"But doesn"t it employ writers who agree with you? Leonard Stilwell, for instance?"
"My grandfather rewarded him for loyalty. Would you say that was the same thing?" When she didn"t answer he went on: "Stilwell undertook some research on my grandfather"s behalf while he was writing for a magazine of ours. The magazine was a casualty of the war, and since Stilwell was medically unfit to fight, my grandfather arranged for him to have the job he holds now."
"Stilwell researched the background of the film your grandfather attacked in the House of Lords."
"Precisely."
"The film your family bought the rights to and suppressed."
"The same."
Her question was intended to take him off guard, but instead it was his response that did so to her. "You admit it?" ------------------------------------180 "Why should I not?"
His impregnable poise was infuriating. "Then maybe you can tell me what your grandfather said to Giles Spence," she blurted.
"My family would have had no desire to speak to him."
Had his voice stiffened, just a little? "But one of them did," Sandy said.
"You"re mistaken."
"Spence certainly came here while he was making the film. I"ve seen proof of that," Sandy said, praying that he wouldn"t call her bluff. "He may even have been on his way here again when he died."
"Do you think so?"
"He died on the road after making the film, I know that. Somewhere on the way north."
Redfield raised the fingers of one hand like a lid and pressed them against his lips while he appeared to ponder. "I do remember something," he murmured.
He reached into an iron basket on the hearth and dropped a log on the fire, and sat back. "Perhaps I do remember Mr. Spence, though I was scarcely toddling. He came here to the house and caused a scene under the impression that our family was trying to sabotage his film. Even as a child I knew that was untrue. This family has no need to hire saboteurs. I rather think that whatever befell Mr. Spence"s film was brought upon it by Mr. Spence."
"What happened to it finally? What happened to the negative?"
"A choice word for it and its intentions, I must say. My father destroyed it. I"m sorry that dismays you, but I rather wonder why this film should mean so much to you."
"I"ve never seen it," Sandy said, breathing hard to control her anger, "but I know people who believe it deserves a place in history."
"It"s a curious notion of history that wants to preserve a film which tells so many lies about England and the English. ------------------------------------181 You and I I and anyone else of intelligence might be able to see it for what it was, but there"s grave danger in a.s.suming everyone to be like ourselves." and anyone else of intelligence might be able to see it for what it was, but there"s grave danger in a.s.suming everyone to be like ourselves."
"You"re saying that was the only reason why your family destroyed a man"s work?"
"Did I imply that? I didn"t mean to. No, the truth is simply that when Mr. Spence failed to receive whatever satisfaction he demanded here, he attempted to lampoon us in the film. More specifically, he inserted into the film a parody of our coat of arms."
Sandy glanced at the shield carved above the fireplace, and saw what she had been trying to remember. The braids of wheat were very like the horns in the design Charlie Miles had sketched for her, and his arthritis would explain why the rest of the design had looked so odd. "I wonder if your research tells you whether his collaborators on the film knew what he had smuggled into it," Redfield said.
"I don"t think any of them did."
"Does that suggest to you that Mr. Spence was not a very admirable person? Not only did he continue filming when he must have known that the nature of the film was likely to lead to its being banned or at the very least to severe restrictions on its distribution, he made his cast and crew unknowing accomplices to slander. They might have lost more than the time he made them waste if my family hadn"t been content just to suppress the film."
He interwove his fingers as if he were about to pray, then turned his palms upward. "I do sympathize with your motives. Your friend"s scholarship ought not to have been disputed in the newspaper. But the country will have forgotten the slur on his name, whereas to revive the film would reopen old wounds. Would you expect me to be less loyal to my family than you are to the memory of your friend?"
"While I"m here," Sandy said, trying to sound casual, "do you think I could speak to your father?" ------------------------------------182 "Out of the question, I"m afraid. He"s old and frail and easily upset, precisely why I cannot allow the film to be revived, even if an illegal copy were to come to light." He gazed at her with a mildness born of total confidence. "I ought to say that if anything I"ve told you were to find its way into the media I should feel bound to take strong action to protect our name, and I rather think my son would too." He looked past her and beckoned. "Miss Allan, my son Daniel."
She hadn"t heard anyone come in, but he must have been close behind her, because he was in front of her before she could turn. He was in his twenties, wearing expensive casual clothes. His face was a chubbier version of his father"s, and more humorous. He"d inherited his father"s economy of gesture. As he bowed slightly to her a faint smile brightened his eyes, and she couldn"t help feeling favored. "Excuse me, father, I didn"t realize you were in conference," he said.
"I"m glad Miss Allan could meet you." When Daniel had gone Lord Redfield murmured, "I hope there will be no need for him to learn what we have been discussing."
She didn"t feel menaced, nor did she think he intended her to. She sensed how proud he was of his son. The Redfield bread lay in her stomach like sunlight and lazy contentment, and she felt as if she had done all she could. She took a last sip of Earl Grey and was pushing herself to her feet when he said, "I shouldn"t like you to think you are simply doing my family a favor. Regard yourself as helping to preserve a little of the best of England and Englishness."
He smiled almost wistfully, his gaze sinking inward. "My father said that to me, just as his father said it to him. We are the guardians of this portion of old England, and should we ever fail it or abandon it, our good fortune will abandon us. We"re as much a product of this land as our crops are. This soil is in our blood. This land is rooted in our souls, and every one of us has his place in the chapel."
He gave a barking laugh. "Now you"ve heard me being ------------------------------------183 pompous," he said, and escorted her to the gatehouse. "I hope that will be the least happy impression you take away from Redfield."
She thought it might be. She walked back to the hotel, past fields of wheat that the lowering sun was turning to gold. Between the stalks the soil glowed redder than the Redfield palace. She felt as if the warmth of the landscape were focused in her stomach and spreading through her, making her steps springy and light and relaxed. She felt the memories of Graham must be as peaceful as she was.
In her room she phoned Roger, but there was no reply. She would have told him to wait while she drove back to London. Apart from pleasure and waiting for him, she could see no reason to linger in Redfield: at least, none that she could identify. She lay on the bed until a gong announced dinner, and went downstairs slowly, preoccupied. Her sense of well-being wasn"t quite enough to hush the notion that while interviewing Redfield she had somehow missed the point--that there was still a crucial issue to be raised. ------------------------------------184 That night she slept more soundly than she had for weeks. She dreamed of a tower that was a single stalk of wheat, swaying so widely that its ear touched the horizon, first north, then south, then east, then west ... At each touch the landscape brightened, until it was white and scaly as chalk. The brightness must have been a translation of the morning sunlight, which eventually wakened her by finding the gap between the curtains and settling on her face.
Children were singing, playing a game in a schoolyard. It must be close to nine o"clock. Sandy stretched and yawned and resisted the temptation to turn over and go back to sleep. No doubt she had missed breakfast, but she ought to get up to meet Roger. He might already be in Redfield, he might even be waiting downstairs if she had slept through a call from the receptionist. She glanced at her watch, and was wide awake. The children weren"t playing before school, they were enjoying their midmorning recess.
She had a quick bath and dressed in jeans and a Tshirt, and went down to the desk. The white-haired receptionist smiled plumply at her. "You go straight in and she"ll get you your breakfast."
"Aren"t I too late? I don"t want to be any trouble. Won"t the other guests have breakfasted by now?"
"Just now you"re our only guest."
"Oh, I thought--was Last night she"d a.s.sumed the other guests had dined after she had trudged sleepily upstairs to ------------------------------------185 bed. Realizing that the hotel was operating solely for her was as disconcerting as having slept so late. "I think I"ll skip breakfast, thanks. Could you tell me if there"s a message?"
"I gave it to you," the girl said, with a bluffness that seemed anxiously defensive. "You remember, yesterday, to go up to the big house."
"Since then, I mean, and not from Lord Redfield."
"No, nothing else at all."
Sandy was turning away when the receptionist detained her. "Will you be having the lunch?"
"Possibly. I"m not sure."
"But you"ll be here for the dinner?"
"I don"t expect to be," Sandy said, and hurried upstairs to phone Roger in case his writing had delayed him and she could head him off. His phone rang and rang until she terminated the call and tried Staff o" Life. He hadn"t called or shown up there either. He must be on his way, she thought, and went out for a walk.
Under the high sun the town looked newly swept. Token shadows stuck out from beneath the buildings. Tudor cottages gleamed at one another across streets, brown houses sunned their smooth thatched scalps. As Sandy strolled, glancing in shop windows at gla.s.s-topped jars of striped sweets sticky as bees, hats like mauve and pink and emerald trophies on poles, elaborately braided loaves, knitting patterns and empty rompers, she heard children chanting answers in a cla.s.sroom.
She pa.s.sed a church, a Sunday school, a graveyard that reached out of the town alongside the factory, toward the fields. Several overalled youths were tending the graves and the gra.s.s. She thought idly of Redfield"s challenge that she should try and find someone discontented, but everyone she met looked well-fed, comfortable, satisfied. All of them bade her good day, many of them asked how she liked the town. As she completed her perambulation of Redfield and strolled back to a pub that looked out on the central green, ------------------------------------186 she realized what she had missed seeing. On all the shops and houses, there hadn"t been a single For Sale sign.
The pub was called the Reaper. She bought a pint of murky beer, and cheese rolls made of the Redfield special, and sat at a table outside. For a while she lazed and ate and drank, feeling as if she were slowing from the rhythm of the click of bowls on the ditched section of the green to the pace of the sundial shadows of chimneys. She took another drink and then another bite, the tastes of beer and bread combining into a warm dark earthy flavor, and remembered that she was still carrying the book by F. X. Faversham in her handbag.
It had been in there when she"d met Lord Redfield. Of course, that was what she had been trying to call to mind about her interview with him, that was the point she had missed. His grandfather hadn"t seen the film when he"d attacked it in the House of Lords, but he"d known it was a version of this story. Perhaps whatever had disturbed him had been with her all the time.
She opened her handbag and glanced about. Two old ladies in slacks were playing bowls, and she was visible from all the houses bordering the green, but why should that bother her when everyone was so welcoming? The Redfield tower commanded the roofs, but Lord Redfield had explained its purpose to her and so drained it of any menace. If she was being watched, so what? "So watch," she said conversationally, and pulled out the book and read the first line of "The Lofty Place."
"There was once a man who presumed to build the highest tower in Christendom."
Well, there it was. No wonder the Redfields had felt libeled--though why should they have, unless the story grew more specific? She read on. "Long before the edifice was raised, the workmen set to cursing it and one another in a Babel of old tongues ...by So Faversham had had the Old Testament in mind, not Redfield? "At the instant when the ------------------------------------187 last stone of the parapet was cemented, the architect commenced to run up the countless thousand steps. Time"s heartbeat ceased until he burst out upon the parapet. The outflung fields spun in a dizzy dance to greet him, the hub of the world"s whirling ...8 Soon the story turned moral, as the architect lost patience with the way a church blocked his view of a distant lake. He climbed into the parapet to see beyond the spire. "A wind like the rage of the heavens caught him up and cast him, as he were a shot bird, to the harsh earth."
His son appeared in the next paragraph, and grew up in a subordinate clause. As he neared the age at which his father had died he became fascinated with the tower. At fifty years old, just like his father, he craned to see beyond the church, and fell, leaving Sandy wondering why he hadn"t simply walked over to the lake. Would his son, whose birth had several intertwining clauses all to itself, repeat the pattern? His mother"s family had him educated abroad, and he distinguished himself in the tropics until "a wasting fever" brought him home to England and his father"s dilapidated property. "There he bethought himself of his father"s last day on the earth, when his father had borne him shoulder- high upon the tower and he had glimpsed the promise of the water which the church had cloaked." He struggled up the tower and clambered onto the parapet, and managed to stand upright. "For the s.p.a.ce of a guttering heartbeat he saw the water clear, and the uprush of air into his eyes could not s.n.a.t.c.h that vision from him as he fell. The spectres of his ancestors sprouted from the earth that their blood had sown, to bear him to that place of which his eyes had glimpsed the merest symbols."
That was all, and it left Sandy scratching her head. She shouldn"t be surprised that the tale had so little to do with her impression of the film--that was nothing new in her experience of the cinema--but what was there in the story to trouble any of the Redfields? She finished her lunch and ------------------------------------188 walked back to the Wheatsheaf, hoping she could discuss the problem with Roger.
He still hadn"t arrived. When the receptionist asked her again if she would be having the dinner, Sandy was politely noncommittal. She thought of resting upstairs, and then she strode out of the hotel. She could walk off her lunch while she was waiting for Roger, and perhaps she might learn what she was disregarding in "The Lofty Place." She would go up the tower. ------------------------------------189 Clouds were bustling across the sun as Sandy walked out of the town. Whenever the sun cleared, the colors of wheat and rusty soil blazed up, a silent leap all around her. The shadow of the tower welled up through the gra.s.s, sank muddily into the earth, reached out again toward the road along which she was walking. The voices of the children at the school shrank and were swept away by the rustle of the landscape, and then that was the only sound except for the small dull sounds of her shoes on the tarmac. When she stepped off the road onto the broad strip of mown gra.s.s that led from the tower to the palace, her tread was m.u.f.fled by the earth.
The sun bloomed through a gap in the clouds, and the shadow of the tower seemed to swerve toward her. She walked along the shadow to the doorway. There was no door, just a frame with a thick lintel, a shape that made her think of standing stones. As she glanced up the rough gray shaft whose only features were gla.s.sless windows as thin as her waist, the tower stooped toward her out of the rushing sky. She closed her eyes for a moment to steady herself, and then paced into the tower.
The stone tube closed around her, chill and gray as fog. She zipped her jacket and started up the steps, each of which was uncomfortably tall. She kept grasping her right knee to help herself climb, and running her left hand over the outer wall to make sure that she didn"t lose her footing. She climbed one complete turn of the spiral and could barely see ------------------------------------190 her way; another turn, and the wall began to glimmer with the light from the first window-slit; another, and she was level with the window, overlooking a pinched vista of the fields. The light fell behind as she clambered upward; dimness filled the next turn of the spiral and made her eyes feel swollen until she came in sight of a further horizon beyond the next window. She stopped at the fifth window to rest her aching legs, and at the seventh and ninth, wishing she had counted the slits so that she knew how much higher she had to climb. She rubbed her legs hard, and then she climbed beyond the light of the ninth window, into a dimness that seemed to be thickening and lasting for more than a turn of the spiral, more than two turns, no longer dimness but darkness that smelled faintly rotten. She pressed her hand against the wall and made herself step up, her legs trembling and aching dully, and something cold touched her scalp.
She flinched and peered upward, and saw a line of daylight narrow as a knife-edge. It was the outline of a trapdoor, from which hung the iron ring that had touched her. She shoved at the trapdoor with her left hand, then with both hands, until her neck felt as if a weight were threatening to sprain it and her body was a ma.s.s of p.r.i.c.kling. The trapdoor didn"t even creak.
She braced herself on the next higher step, legs wide apart, and tried to throw her whole weight upward. The trapdoor stirred, rose, tottered and fell open with a hollow thud beneath the sky, and Sandy heaved herself onto the crown of the tower, onto stone that felt unexpectedly warm. She sat there, eyes closed, to recover from her climb and her struggle with the trapdoor. After a while she crawled to the parapet and used it to help herself to her feet.
The landscape rose with her, flexing its fields of wheat. She grasped the parapet with both hands, feeling as if the sky might sweep her from her perch. If the wind hadn"t already s.n.a.t.c.hed her breath, the view would have. Fields that the ------------------------------------191 afternoon had polished yellow as honey stretched to the rim of the world, where the land and the sky turned pale. At the eastern limit she saw the sea, the edge of an enormous scythe-blade. A flight of birds swooped glittering from above the bunched town on her right toward the palace on her left. There was a chapel beyond it, she saw, a squat gray building that looked older than the palace, old as the tower. The birds flew up from the chapel like sc.r.a.ps of a fire and wheeled toward the distant sea, but Sandy"s attention was still on the chapel. Redfield had said that every one of his forefathers had a place there, and he"d told her to go wherever she liked. She could see nothing about the tower to suggest why the Redfields had objected to the story she"d read earlier, but there might be some explanation at the chapel.
She gripped the parapet and walked around the tower for a last view. She felt as if her senses were raising the top of her head to let it all in. Clouds poured by above the tower, and she sensed the turning of the world; for a dizzy moment she felt herself clinging to the tip of the tower protruding from the world, racing through the sky. The thought of climbing higher made her throat tighten. She let go of the parapet and crossed to the trapdoor.
A faint stale smell rose to meet her. Rain must have seeped around the trapdoor and watered some growth on the steps. If she didn"t close the trap behind her on her way down, the steps wouldn"t be safe for anyone who came up after her. She climbed down as far as the dark, to see if there were any patches of vegetation she would need to avoid. Having found none, she went back to shut the trapdoor.
She closed both hands around the scaly ring and hauled at it. When the door ignored her, she took a step down and threw all her weight backward. The ring shifted in its socket, and she lost her footing and swung into s.p.a.ce. Her weight on the ring heaved the door up. She had barely time to duck, pressing her chin against her collarbone so hard she couldn"t ------------------------------------192 breathe, when the door crashed into place, blotting out the light like a fall of earth.
Her feet scrabbled at the dark that smelled of rot, her wrists aching from the slam of the trapdoor. At last she found a foothold. She let herself down onto the step and crouched there trembling and hugging her knees, cursing the Redfields for building their tower exclusively for men, with a trapdoor no woman could manage without endangering herself. The steps were male too. She gathered herself, breathing as deeply as she could bear with the stale smell, and stood up.
This section of the steps would be the longest stretch of darkness before she reached a window. She pressed her hands against the cold close walls and stretched one leg out, groping downward. She stepped down, steadied herself, groped again. Perhaps it wouldn"t be such a task; her body was establishing a rhythm. But she had climbed down fewer than ten steps when she faltered and held her breath.
She had to go down, there was no other way. The sound like hollow irregular breathing below her must be wind through the first of the slits in the wall, a wind that was intensifying the stale smell. All the time she had been at the top she had seen n.o.body within a mile of the tower. She mustn"t imagine that someone was waiting for her just beyond the turn. She thrust her hands against the walls as if the stone might lend her a little of its strength, and made herself go down.
Ten steps, eleven, twelve. Each one felt like the absence of a step just before she found her footing. It didn"t feel as if someone unseen were waiting below her to grab her foot and jerk her off balance, she told herself fiercely. Another step, and her eyes began to flicker with glimpses of the curve of the outer wall. She hopped down, almost losing her hold on the walls. The steps ahead were deserted. She climbed down into the light, as far as the highest window.
She rested and peered out of the tower. She would have ------------------------------------193 liked to see someone in the fields, not to call out to them but simply to know they were near. She mustn"t linger, or she might lose the will to keep descending. She pushed herself away from the window, and was stepping into her own shadow shen she froze. She"d heard a rattle of metal above her. It was the iron ring.
The trapdoor hadn"t been quite closed, she rea.s.sured herself. It must have fallen belatedly into place. There couldn"t be anyone above her, but just the idea of it brought the darkness below her alive as well. A stale sour taste of fear grew in her mouth. She felt sick, and then furious. She thumped the walls and let herself down onto the next step.
When she could no longer see where she was going, she began to kick out before stepping downward. The thin irregular breaths of the wind, only the wind, were both above her and below her now, as the rotten smell seemed to be. She would have dug the whistle out of her handbag, but then she wouldn"t be able to hold on to the wall. She controlled the urge to lash out with her feet, for fear of overbalancing, but she was climbing down so determinedly that more than once she almost fell.
She made herself climb past the next window without stopping, so as not to be dazzled, nor to be tempted to stay in the light. There were only another six windows to go, almost twenty turns of the spiral which led into darkness that felt poised to leap or just to let her walk into its arms. Each stretch seemed a little darker than the last, and in each the hollow windy sounds above her seemed to be strengthening. Wouldn"t they, since there were more and more windows above her? The steps felt as if they were growing taller, especially where it was dark, but that simply meant her legs were tiring. By the time she had counted five more windows her palms were throbbing from the roughness of the walls, her legs felt scarcely capable of holding her up.
She stumbled past one more window. She groped down through darkness that felt as if it were turning sluggishly and ------------------------------------194 sneaking the steps away from her reaching feet. Something was wrong; the light from the doorway should be visible by now. The breathing darkness seemed to lurch toward her. She floundered downward and saw light, too faint, too narrow. Even the sight of the window that was its source wasn"t rea.s.suring. She had miscounted, she told herself: this had to be the last one, she couldn"t go on laboring downward past window after window; that could happen only in a nightmare. She sc.r.a.ped her palms on the walls as she ventured down toward a darkness that seemed suddenly to be holding its breath. When she saw the edge of the daylight that lay within the doorway, her relief was so great that she almost missed the next step.
Once she reached the bottom of the steps she sat on them, ignoring the darkness at her back, and gazed at the sky until her legs ceased shivering. At last she pushed herself to her feet and limped outside. The road was still empty, and so were the fields as far as she could see, except for a scarecrow in the wheat near the gra.s.s. Its ragged head was a dark blotch against the sunlight that glowed through holes in its torso and gleamed dully through the bunches, which looked disconcertingly sharp, at the ends of its arms.
She was halfway to the town before it occurred to her how odd it was to place a scarecrow so near the edge of a field. She had to a.s.sume that someone inexpert had put it there, for when she glanced over her shoulder it was no longer to be seen. It must have fallen and be lying low in the wheat. She headed for the houses as fast as she could limp, not looking back. ------------------------------------195 "Will you be--was "I"m still not sure," Sandy said. "Are you quite certain there"s no message?"
"I"ve been here ever since you went out, Miss Allan," the receptionist said with a hint of testiness.
"And n.o.body new has come in?"
"They couldn"t have, or I"d have seen them."
"Thanks anyway," Sandy said, and made for the bar to check, in case there was another entrance. There wasn"t, and in any case the bar was locked. She hurried upstairs, feeling as if she were dodging another repet.i.tion of the question about dinner. Dodging it infuriated her, and so did the receptionist"s maternal interest in her welfare, if only because it made Sandy feel childish--childish enough to have panicked in the tower. Her behavior there enraged her most of all. It was one reason why she wished Roger were here, so that he could scoff at her.
She slammed her bedroom door and phoned Staff o" Life. n.o.body had been looking for her there or left a message for her. She called Roger"s flat, and cut off the ringing when she"d had enough. His book must have delayed him, but why couldn"t it have delayed him long enough for her to reach him now? At least his absence gave her time to visit the Redfield chapel.
She made herself comfortable and went out of the hotel, half-expecting to see Roger or to hear him call to her. The children were quiet now, home from school. The next ------------------------------------196 crowd would be of workers from Staff o" Life. As Sandy walked she heard the sc.r.a.pe of a spade in a garden, the rising shriek of a kettle, the voice of a children"s television host, proposing a game with unctuous heartiness.
The tower stepped back like a master of ceremonies, opening the fields to her. There was no sign of the scarecrow, no movements higher than the swaying wheat. Several hundred yards short of the palace she moved onto the gra.s.s, toward the shadow of wheat that lay like a seepage of mud along the border of the fields. She thought of skirting the palace widely, but why need she be surrept.i.tious? She walked straight to the chapel.
Curtains that looked too heavy to shift blinded the multiple eyes of the bays that swelled out from the palace, and she told herself that it was only her imagination that made her feel watched, a lone figure in the midst of the flat landscape. She resisted the urge to place the chapel between herself and the palace, and strolled to the entrance.
The chapel was an early Norman building, squat and gray. The windows in the thick walls were narrow and arched, the stout oak door, studded and hinged with iron, was set in an arch bulging with rough pillars. She reached out to push the door, and glanced up at the palace. A naked woman with her legs spread wide and her fingers digging deep into herself was staring down from the corner of the chapel with eyes gouged out of the stone.
She"d seen similar figures, apparently intended to rob the faithful of any pleasure in s.e.x, on other Norman churches. She went to the corner and surveyed the corbel, where there were several other figures: a man with a chipped erection and a mouth stuffed with wheat, a face with hands pulling its lips wide to let out a grotesquely long tongue, a woman holding what Sandy hoped were two fruits in front of her chest to feed a pair of fleshless canine figures, which were biting and clawing at them. Sandy turned away, and a voice above her said conversationally, "Miss Allan." ------------------------------------197 Lord Redfield was leaning out of an upper window of the palace, his large flat face almost bored, his eyebrows slightly raised, creasing his forehead. "Still getting the lie of the land?" he said.
"You did say I could go where I liked. I saw your chapel from the tower and thought you wouldn"t mind."
"Nor do I. Steep yourself in our history by all means. You"ve done the tower, have you? I"m impressed."
"It took something out of me, I"ll admit. I wouldn"t call it your main tourist attraction."
"It was never meant to be. It was strictly for those with sufficient of our strength. I hope you will excuse me now if I leave you to your delving," he said, and closed the window.
Sandy strolled back to the door of the chapel. There was no handle, only a rusty keyhole. One push told her that the door was locked. She supposed she could ask for the key, except that it seemed clear Redfield would have offered it to her or had the door opened for her. It was the family chapel, after all, hardly a public place. Perhaps he wouldn"t mind if she looked in the windows, but she went round to the side of the chapel away from the palace, just in case.
Beyond the first window, over which a man squatted with his p.e.n.i.s in his mouth, she saw dark pews stained by the afternoon light and standing on a rough stone floor. Through the next window, beneath a figure which appeared to be splitting itself open from a.n.u.s to chin, she could see more pews and a corner of the altar. Between this window and the one nearest the altar, mossy steps led down under the chapel.
If she wasn"t meant to enter the chapel, she could scarcely expect to go into the vault. She went to the top of the steps and shaded her eyes. The nine steps led down to an iron gate, so elaborate that she could see nothing beyond it. She listened for a moment in case anyone was nearby, then she picked her way down the softened slippery green steps.
Gripping both uprights of the pockmarked arch, she ------------------------------------198 ducked close to the iron tracery of the gate. Apart from the stirring of her own blurred shadow in the dimness beyond it, she could see nothing she could put a name to. She ventured forward another inch, and her foot skidded off the lowest step.
She flung up a hand to protect her face, and inadvertently elbowed the gate. It groaned and swung inward. She hadn"t thought to search for the bolt, taking it for granted that the gate was locked. Now she saw that part of the tracery was in fact the bolt, pulled back just short of the socket in the wall. She glanced up the steps, past the top where blades of gra.s.s trembled, and cupped her ear. The field was quiet as the clouds sailing by. She stooped under the arch, feeling as if she was being made to bow to all the Redfields, and stood waiting for her eyesight to catch up with her.